Peter Neville is a research associate of the University of Westminster and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has spent more than two decades researching and writing about British diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on modern British and European History.
Britain has had a foreign office since 1782. Most of its early
policies involved protecting British naval supremacy and the trade
routes to its empire. Since WW II and the Cold War, Britain has
been a secondary power, but with an interest in regional defense
and economic organization in Europe. The entries in this dictionary
by Neville reflect these changing realities of British foreign
policy. The volume opens with a chronology of events from 1702 to
2012. These are fleshed out in an extensive introduction to British
history in this time period. The dictionary itself has detailed
entries on British prime ministers; foreign
secretaries/undersecretaries; both British and foreign diplomats;
other foreign figures (such as American presidents who have
impacted British foreign policy); and countries, places, and events
that have played a role in its history. Other features are
appendixes of prime ministers, foreign secretaries, and permanent
undersecretaries, with their dates in office, and an extensive
bibliography of resources, also arranged chronologically. This
would be a useful resource for both students and researchers of
British foreign policy. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level
undergraduates and above; general readers.
*CHOICE*
British foreign policy has changed dramatically since the creation
of the country’s foreign office, in 1792. This book is an
informational starting point for covering more than 200 years of
dramatic history. Neville, a research associate of the University
of Westminster and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society,
applies his knowledge of British diplomacy to the creation of this
work. The book opens with a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a
chronology listing key historical events, and an extensive
introduction. The introduction is a quick synopsis of British
history, covering a wide swath of time—including the times when the
country was a global power, its position in both world wars, a
discussion of the Cold War era, and a glimpse back at 2012. The
dictionary provides various levels of additional information about
significant people, topics, and places in British foreign policy,
with some entries coming in at around 50 words and others closer to
300. For example, the entry for Afghanistan is quite extensive,
while the Westland affair, concerning the then prime minister
Margaret Thatcher, is very short. The dictionary concludes with
appendixes listing British prime ministers and foreign secretaries,
a list of permanent undersecretaries at the foreign office, and a
bibliography. This reference on a specialized topic is recommended
as a starting point in researching topics related to British
foreign affairs and would be a great addition to the humanities
collections of most academic and larger public libraries.
*Booklist*
A chronology covers events from the beginning of the War of Spanish
Succession in 1702 until the May 2012 expulsion of Syrian diplomats
from London following a massacre during the ongoing Syrian civil
war. An introductory contextual essay begins with the 1782
establishment of the Foreign Office and stresses this institution's
preeminent foreign policy objective as maintaining a European
balance of power to prevent any single European power from
dominating Europe including countries such as Belgium and Holland
bordering the North Sea. This introduction also details Britain's
rise to global power through its colonial empire, the influence of
World War I, the interwar period, World War II in weakening British
global preeminence, and post-World War II developments including
decolonization, the rise of the European Union and London's
complicated relationship with that entity, the post-Cold War policy
developments including Britain's relationship with the United
States and its participation in controversial military operations
in Afghanistan and Iraq. The dictionary section includes detailed
but succinctly written entries on topics such as American Bases in
Britain, the British Commonwealth, Eton College, Foreign Secretary
Ernest Bevin, India, Chancellor of the Exchequer Niger Lawson,
Russia, Margaret Thatcher, and the 1921-1922 Washington Naval
Conference. Appendixes include a list of Foreign Secretaries and
Permanent Undersecretaries at the Foreign Office. A bibliography of
scholarly secondary sources covering various periods of British
diplomatic history concludes the work. . . .[T]his will serve as a
useful introduction to those desiring to study British diplomatic
history.
*American Reference Books Annual*
This is the fourteenth contribution to Scarecrow’s Historical
Dictionaries of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations series begun in
2006 and only the second volume to cover the foreign policy of a
specific country. ... [T]he Chronology provides useful factual
detail to support the Dictionary entries. ... Neville recognises
the extent of the literature and does provide a useful narrative
introduction describing some of the key works listed in the five
main chronological sections by which the Bibliography is arranged.
... [T]his book is a useful and up to date contribution to the
reference literature on British foreign relations. It belongs in
any library where modern British history or politics is studied. It
could also have a place in a general reference library where there
is a need for a factual backdrop to other works on Britain’s
relationship with the wider world.
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